Gravitational Wave Scattering From the Sun and Planets

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kessler, Daniel A., Copi, Craig J., Starkman, Glenn D.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866915089231118336
author Kessler, Daniel A.
Copi, Craig J.
Starkman, Glenn D.
author_facet Kessler, Daniel A.
Copi, Craig J.
Starkman, Glenn D.
contents General relativity predicts that massless waves should scatter from the Riemann curvature of their backgrounds. These scattered waves are sometimes called $\textit{tails}$ and have never been directly observed. Here we calculate the gravitational waves scattered in the backward direction (scattering angle $\vartheta=π$) from the weak-field curvature of an extended massive object, finding close agreement with previous results in the long-wavelength limit. These long-wavelength results are then applied to gravitational waves in the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) sensitivity band scattering from the Sun and planets. We estimate that scattering from the Sun and the planets from Jupiter to Neptune could contribute a $10^{-3}$ amplitude modulation to LISA observations when these objects almost intersect the line of sight between LISA and the source, leading to forward scattering with $\vartheta\simeq0$. These conditions should be realized for the Sun during the lifetime of LISA if the detection rate of long-duration sources is not much smaller than a thousand per year.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_01585
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Gravitational Wave Scattering From the Sun and Planets
Kessler, Daniel A.
Copi, Craig J.
Starkman, Glenn D.
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
General relativity predicts that massless waves should scatter from the Riemann curvature of their backgrounds. These scattered waves are sometimes called $\textit{tails}$ and have never been directly observed. Here we calculate the gravitational waves scattered in the backward direction (scattering angle $\vartheta=π$) from the weak-field curvature of an extended massive object, finding close agreement with previous results in the long-wavelength limit. These long-wavelength results are then applied to gravitational waves in the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) sensitivity band scattering from the Sun and planets. We estimate that scattering from the Sun and the planets from Jupiter to Neptune could contribute a $10^{-3}$ amplitude modulation to LISA observations when these objects almost intersect the line of sight between LISA and the source, leading to forward scattering with $\vartheta\simeq0$. These conditions should be realized for the Sun during the lifetime of LISA if the detection rate of long-duration sources is not much smaller than a thousand per year.
title Gravitational Wave Scattering From the Sun and Planets
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.01585